Flight-Simulator Instructor Fired for ‘Shaming’ Canada on CNN

CNN’s nonstop coverage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may not have generated much actual information about the missing airplane, but it did lead to one guy losing his job: uFly, the business that provided the flight simulator the network used to entertain countless theories about what happened to Flight 370, has fired instructor Mitchell Casado for humiliating his country andemployer.

Casado, who spent 12- to 18-hour days in the fake cockpit with CNN’s Martin Savidge, generally appeared on-air in jeans and a plaid shirt (which ended up with its own Twitter account). His casual look did not impress audiences or uFly owner Claudio Teixeira, who told the Associated Press, “Even though I let him be on TV he shamed us Canadians and shamed my company with the way he was dressing like he was 15 years old. People were complaining that it wasn’t professional at all … If you go to any plane you don’t see them in shorts andsandals.”

Teixeira also said that Casado sometimes did not show up for work in the simulator when CNN’s cameras weren’t around. Did fame go to the instructor’s head? Casado refused to speak to the AP about the situation, though he did tweet aboutit:

My boss had me training a new guy the last few days, and now that he can do my job, and CNN left, he fired me. That's Ufly.

A CNN spokeswoman said that the network would not be broadcasting from the flight simulator on Thursday, but might do so in the future. Who knows what the new instructor’s big debut will do for theratings?